A Sentimental Journey Over Brutal Terrain

“A Steady Rain,” which opened on Tuesday night at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, is probably best regarded as a small, wobbly pedestal on which two gods of the screen may stand in order to be worshiped. Not that Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman are striking Olympian poses in Keith Huff’s 90-minute, two-character melodrama, directed by John Crowley. On the contrary, playing a couple of all-too-human Chicago cops whose friendship is direly tested, these strapping actors work hard to tamp down associations with their super-heroic franchise film roles, that of James Bond (Mr. Craig) and the X-Man mutant known as Wolverine (Mr. Jackman).

For the record, both are just fine in their parts, and in the case of Mr. Craig, almost unrecognizable with a milquetoast mustache and cowed mien, more than fine. But it’s hard to avoid thinking that had they chosen to recite the alphabet in counterpoint (which might have been more fun), their joint appearance would still generate ticket sales unknown for a straight play since Julia Roberts appeared in Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain” (which had a cast of three instead of two) three years ago.

Note, by the way, the cabbalistic coincidence of “rain” in those titles. Perhaps superstitious producers will start looking for other plays with small casts and precipitation in their names as money-making vehicles for stars from the covers of People. How about a revival of “A Hatful of Rain” with Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, the sweethearts of the vampires-in-love “Twilight” movies, as the drug addict and his pregnant wife? Or Lindsay Lohan as Sadie Thompson in “Rain”?

But back to the “Rain” of the moment. Previously seen at the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar and the Chicago Dramatists (with far less famous actors), “A Steady Rain” takes up a sit-dram setup made popular in gritty plays and movies of the 1930s: Best friends since childhood, in the same tough neighborhood, find themselves on different sides of the law and in love with the same woman!

Clark Gable, William Powell, James Cagney and Pat O’Brien all played one or the other side of this equation on screen. After a decade or so of hard use, that formula looked threadbare and made for parody, though it has persisted and can still be glimpsed in episodes of “Law & Order” and similar television fare.

If Mr. Huff has not managed to reweave this premise with any surprising threads, he has packed it with enough lurid incident to fill a season of “Law & Order.” The center of the play may be the changing relationship between two men: Denny, the alpha dog (Mr. Jackman), a blustery family guy with skewed notions of domestic and professional honor, and his one-man fan club, Joey (Mr. Craig), a more inhibited, slightly priggish bachelor. But, oh, the places they go and the things they see that shake a friendship that has endured since “kinnygarten” (to use the local pronunciation).

This means that while movie fans accustomed to seeing Mr. Craig and Mr. Jackman running, shooting, brawling, driving like maniacs and making savage love on screen will be denied those pleasures here, they will at least be allowed to hear their idols describe such things, in alternating accounts delivered under interrogation lamps. The adventures of Joey and Denny, which begin with the description of a drive-by shooting that tears up Denny’s living room (and one of his young sons), embrace car chases, gun fights, torture, mutilation, a mean pimp, a victimized whore, a psycho killer and illicit sex, both naughty and nice.

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Daniel Craig, left, and Hugh Jackman play Chicago police officers, who have been friends from childhood, in "A Steady Rain," at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

All this unfolds in a he-said, he-said series of recollections that might have been (marginally) more credible spoken by a couple of sweaty, paunchy American character actors instead of a buff pair of superstars from England and Australia. But in that case, “A Steady Rain” would never have made it to Broadway.

As it is, despite early reports that Mr. Craig and Mr. Jackman were having problems mastering Chicago street-speak, their accents remain mostly in place. And they tell their characters’ stories with a centeredness that confidently holds the stage, though it rarely generates excitement.

In a role that gives off an acrid whiff of the rogue cop played by Harvey Keitel in Abel Ferrara’s 1992 movie, “Bad Lieutenant,” Mr. Jackman often seems to be presenting his character more than inhabiting it. He is an incorrigibly likable entertainer, naturally at home M.C.-ing the Oscars or starring in musicals like “Oklahoma!” (in London) or “The Boy From Oz” (on Broadway). Here his polished charm and clean, expansive gestures keep us from ever recoiling from Denny, no matter how destructively he behaves.

Mr. Craig, a highly reputable stage actor in London (“Angels in America,” “A Number”) before he became the screen’s sixth James Bond, creates a more complete portrait as Joey, who emerges as a constant worrier, born with a sense of guilt and a fear of offending. Playing small, drawing in on himself as if hoping to become invisible, Mr. Craig’s Joey still registers large and lucid. And it’s amusing to watch him and Mr. Jackman as carefully contrasted, yin-and-yang studies in body language.

That style gap never closes, though, and it should. The tantalizing program and poster art for “A Steady Rain,” featuring a picture of Mr. Craig’s and Mr. Jackman’s faces blurring in intersection, suggests a merging (or reversal) of identities that would seem to be the play’s major theme. Yet Joey and Denny remain fixed in their archetypes, which makes the clichés in their stories all the more visible. (That includes the mood-setting bad weather, which inspires one of the boys to say, “I blamed it on the rain.”)

Mr. Crowley, who brilliantly staged Martin McDonagh’s “Pillowman” on Broadway in 2005, directs with restraint, elegance and limited imagination. Working with the accomplished team of Scott Pask (scenery and costumes), Hugh Vanstone (lighting) and Mark Bennett (music and sound), he occasionally has Joey and Denny’s memories assume three-dimensional form, with mean streets and forbidding woods materializing from the darkness behind them.

He needn’t have bothered. Nobody goes to “A Steady Rain,” which ends its hot-ticket limited run on Dec. 6, to look at scenery. The woman with whom I saw the show made her priorities clear afterward, and they are doubtless shared by many. If only, she said, the play had been set in a police station locker room, where the characters might frequently change clothes. As it was, she was thankful for the small mercy that, toward the play’s end, Mr. Craig finally removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves.